Imre Lakatos Quotes

Indeed, This Epistemological Theory Of The Relation Between Theory And Experiment Differs Sharply From The Epistemological Theory Of Naive Falsificationism.

The Classical Example Of A Successful Research Programme Is Newton's Gravitational Theory: Possibly The Most Successful Research Programme Ever.

Research Programmes, Besides Their Negative Heuristic, Are Also Characterized By Their Positive Heuristic.

Einstein's Results Again Turned The Tables And Now Very Few Philosophers Or Scientists Still Think That Scientific Knowledge Is, Or Can Be, Proven Knowledge.

That Sometimes Clear ... And Sometimes Vague Stuff ... Which Is ... Mathematics.

One May Rationally Stick To A Degenerating Research Programme Until It Is Overtaken By A Rival And Even After. What One Must Not Do Is To Deny Its Poor Public Record... It Is Perfectly Rational To Play A Risky Game: What Is Irrational Is To Deceive Oneself About The Risk.

It Would Be Wrong To Assume That One Must Stay With A Research Programme Until It Has Exhausted All Its Heuristic Power, That One Must Not Introduce A Rival Programme Before Everybody Agrees That The Point Of Degeneration Has Probably Been Reached.

Belief May Be A Regrettably Unavoidable Biological Weakness To Be Kept Under The Control Of Criticism: But Commitment Is For Popper An Outright Crime.

In Degenerating Programmes, However, Theories Are Fabricated Only In Order To Accommodate Known Facts

The History Of Mathematics, Lacking The Guidance Of Philosophy, [is] Blind, While The Philosophy Of Mathematics, Turning Its Back On The Most Intriguing Phenomena In The History Of Mathematics, Is Empty.

Man's Respect For Knowledge Is One Of His Most Peculiar Characteristics. Knowledge In Latin Is Scientia, And Science Came To Be The Name Of The Most Respectable Kind Of Knowledge.

It Is Not That We Propose A Theory And Nature May Shout No; Rather, We Propose A Maze Of Theories, And Nature May Shout Inconsistent.